Don't Think I Don't Think About It
by Randomness is Bliss
Summary: Maggie confronts Daryl about losing Beth, and Daryl talks back. Short, angsty, and Bethyl. Hope you all enjoy!


**A/n: Hello all! This is my first foray into writing for the Walking Dead fandom, and my first time writing anything even remotely Bethyl. Finding Daryl's voice was a little hard for me, so if you have tips for how I can improve, that would be fantastic! This is just short and kind of angsty. Hopefully you enjoy!**

**Set after the group escapes from Terminus. Beth is still missing. Inspired by the song "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" by Darius Rucker**

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Maggie and Glenn returned from another successful run. With Rick and Carol returning empty-handed and Michonne still MIA, their bags bulging with the supplies that had been able to glean from a small end-of-days bunker some crazy fuck had been keeping up was a welcome sight. Daryl wondered if you could still call people like that crazy. After all, they'd been right.

Lunatic rednecks aside, the cans of food, bottles of water, and ammunition was sorely needed after being on the run again. They'd shored up a large farmhouse, they kind Maggie and—the kind Hershel had owned. It wasn't like the prison. Didn't have walls like that. But the windows were boarded up and a constant watch was kept. Tamed walkers were kept around the edges of the property and most everyone left them alone. Food was hard to come by, though, and doing runs was hard to get all their supplies was hard to get back into the habit of doing. They'd been spoiled at the prison, in more ways than one.

Tonight was quiet, few people were in the house. Maggie and Glenn were unpacking, having already said their hellos and proven they'd come back alive and unbitten. Rick was on watch and Carol was off somewhere. Daryl didn't much care where. At least, that's what he told himself.

Daryl was helping put everything in its place. Somehow, he still held a position of power within the group left over from their days in the prison. Even though he hardly talked anymore. Even though he had come back to the group alone, trailing a pack of murderers and rapist. So he did was he was supposed to do and nothing more. He would kill as many Walkers as he could, take down any rival groups. But he'd be damned if he had to have another prissy conversation. Not now. Not after.

"Maggie, what's this?" Carl asked, holding up a thin, leather-bound book. Daryl reacted to the noise, not to the question. Carl usually didn't bother asking him questions. Daryl didn't bother answering most of the time anyway. Maggie looked down at the book and Glenn reached for her hand. Daryl pretended not to notice.

"It's a journal. Like the one Beth kept," Maggie said, swallowing back tears that she didn't want anyone to see but everyone knew were there.

"We found it in the bunker. The guy must've wanted to keep track of everything that happened once he'd been proven right. Something like that anyway, so Maggie grabbed it. We thought Beth might like a new one, since her old journal is probably long gone," Glenn added for her. He tried for a smile, brown eyes still holding a kind of hopefulness in them that Daryl thought could only be a result of being able to hang on to his Greene sister.

Daryl coughed to hide a laugh.

"What's wrong, Daryl?" Maggie said, a tiny hint of annoyance was creeping into her voice.

"Nothin'," Daryl said, putting away the last can and sat the backpack onto the counter. He turned to leave the room. Being around Maggie was hard. Being around her and Glenn at the same time was harder.

Maggie didn't let him go, though. She let go of Glenn's hand and stepped in front of him, leering up into his eyes.

"Obviously it's not nothin', Daryl. So spit it out."

Carl and Glenn looked on, both their eyes wide and silent.

"I just think it's stupid is all, getting supplies we don't need," Daryl said. He tried to keep his voice even, calm. He didn't want to bring up Beth, not if he could avoid it.

"The only reason we don't need it, Daryl, is because you're the one who lost her," Maggie said pushing his chest, getting up into his face.

Glenn stepped toward her, put his hand on her shoulder, "Maggie—"

"My baby sister would be here right now if it weren't for you, Daryl Dixon. You come back her sayin' that she was with you, that she was _safe_. But she ain't here. And why not? You won't tell us," Maggie was yelling now, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. "All you say is 'she's just gone.' Sure as shit she's gone. Because of you. And you don't even _care,_ you just go around, smooth as stones. You don't care about anyone. You just do what you need to do to survive and nothin' more. You don't talk to no one unless you have to, and you haven't so much as touched Judith in _weeks_. So don't come in here telling me that getting a fucking _diary_ for my little sister is stupid when you're the stupid fucking redneck that lost her. And you don't even care."

This time, when Glenn grabbed for her, she let him pull her back. Tears streamed down Maggie's face but the rage was still there in her eyes. The room was silent for a second before Daryl swallowed past the lump in his throat.

"You think I don't think about it? Huh, Maggie? That I don't care? You think I don't go to sleep every single night seeing her bein' taken?" He stepped forward quickly, roughly. Through the haze of his anger, he didn't see Glenn or Carl, all he could see was Maggie. And in Maggie's face, he saw Beth. In the curve of her nose, the slant of her eyes. Daryl was yelling and he didn't care. "And all I remember is me runnin', runnin' and runnin' and runnin'. But I'm never fast enough, not near fast enough to get her back. You're right. It's my own goddamned fault she's gone, that I trusted that place enough to let her go and I told her to run. So yeah, it is my fault Maggie. But don't you think for one second that between the work, and the walkers, and trying to keep this group together that I don't think about it. Don't you dare say I don't care. Not a second goes by that I'm not looking for Beth and thinking about how it's only because of me that she's not here to use the stupid fuckin' journal you got her. Don't you fucking dare."

He swallowed hard, voice suddenly cut. Without waiting for a response, Daryl turned tail and walked out of the house, grabbing his crossbow off the table. The nightmares were going to be bad tonight, he could already tell. Maybe if he killed enough walkers, got bone-tired enough, he wouldn't dream. He both looked forward to and dreaded going to sleep and not seeing Beth's blonde hair and pale eyes staring back at him.

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**Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and tell me what you thought!**

**Bliss**


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